A school has come under fire for insisting that teachers making schoolgirls endure groping, hugging and even late night solo visits to the teacher’s bedroom “does not constitute sexual harassment,” instead merely chiding the teacher responsible for “inappropriate instruction.”

The scandal centres on a Hamamatsu city middle school in Shizuoka prefecture, where in 2007 and 2008 a teacher in his thirties – who has not had his name made public – was accused of taking sexual advantage of a number of his female charges.

Amongst the reported incidents, he engineered time alone with his pupils in clubs and his car, hugging, grasping and holding them by various parts of their anatomy.

In one case he was lodged with students on a trip, and summoned a girl to his room in the middle of the night to “embrace” her.

Reports of at least six such incidents managed to survive the school’s reporting process, with girls complaining that they “didn’t want to go to school anymore” and “couldn’t continue attending club activities” thanks to his attentions.

The teacher denied any wrongdoing and took a “special leave of absence,” and two years later the school warned him that his teaching methods were “inappropriate and excessive” and he later voluntarily opted to leave his post.

However, school authorities are still adamant he did nothing wrong, refusing to punish or even accuse him of wrongdoing as “we judged nothing he did to constitute sexual harassment and so there is no offence to discipline him for.”

As they took no official action, none of their deliberations have been made public.

They also say the reason it took almost 5 years for them to resolve the matter was “out of consideration for his victims, who were still attending the school at that time.”

Despite denying any sexual harassment took place, school officials now freely concede that “it was out of line whichever way you look at it… why on earth did they come to that judgement?”

Whether this is merely grotesque malfeasance of the kind teachers are notorious for or some sort of cunning recruitment strategy is the subject of much debate online:

“Yet another hentai teacher?”

“This is a bit more serious than just ‘sexual harassment.’ Arrest him already!”

“Any non-teacher would have been arrested for ‘indecent acts with a minor’ after this.”

“They just sweep it under the rug with the usual excuses about protecting someone’s privacy.”

“He ‘embraced’ her in his room at their lodgings… damn him!”

“Do they just mean hug or did he do her?” [In Japanese "idaku" can mean either]

“Pretty hot situation!”

“Please give some thought to the poor teachers who might stand to lose their jobs.”

“So he gets to retire voluntarily with a severance package and then teach at a cram school and do it all over?”

“A special leave of absence (paid, of course) – isn’t that the greatest?”

“This nation has just become a comfort woman for civil servants to abuse, hasn’t it?”

“If you are a lolicon, your heart is set on becoming a teacher. There is simply no other reason anyone would want to become one.”

“What is it with teachers and their efforts to suppress any and all evidence of crimes at their schools?”

“Their union is just full of these perverts, that’s why.”

“They are so obsessed with taking advantage of schoolgirls that they are too busy to do anything about bullying.”

“School boards all over the country are exactly the same.”

“School boards basically exist to cover up the crimes and incompetence of their teachers.”

Exactly, now the children of the future are going to be at this pervert's mercy without even a warning. This is why you reveal the names of accused scumbags. The Law might have let you get away with it, but civilians deserve the right to know.

A school has no business to judge on matters pertaining criminal acts. That's purely up to courts. Then again this seldom works in the so-called democratic / lawful society in western countries, so such attitude can hardly be expected of a society such as Japan ...

I dont mean to defend him i merely defend the ways the law work. I understand why he wasn't prosecuted for any crime, cause, he HASN'T committed a crime. Among the most unpleasant grotesque activities reported that "survived" the process, meaning a lot of irrelevant stuff died off, was that he hugged. A hug.

Yes the way he did it was out of line, but not illegally out of line, therefore you can't prosecute him for a crime that wasn't committed since there are no crimes he committed. I am absolutely on the students side and i honestly think he's not suited for teachings of any minors but i can't deny the fact that the law is right. You can't deny that, only be arrogant and naive about the facts.

"You are innocent until proven guilty". Proof, facts, THEN we can talk. Until he's been proven guilty, he hasn't done anything wrong except being extremely creepy.

"Among the most unpleasant grotesque activities reported that "survived" the process, _meaning a lot of irrelevant stuff died off_"
Clearly you don't know how sweeping stuff under the carpet normally works.

"A hug"
Ok, let's leave aside the fact that the reported incidents included clearly illegal behavior like groping for a minute. Normal mortals (as in not civil servants) are prosecuted for stuff far less intrusive than "hugging" a girl that did not explicitly consent before or after the act. Like, asking for directions or waving. Clearly it's possible to bend Japanese law in a way to make what he did illegal. The reason it's not done is because teachers in Asian countries enjoy all-encompassing impunity. Experience shows that he could have raped every single female student and would still have gotten off scot free.

"Proof, facts, THEN we can talk"
It's pretty obvious from the article that it had been established beyond doubt that the accusations are true.

Japan legal system isn’t like the American one, there you're guilty until proven innocent and they even use torture on the suspects so they accept they are guilty even against evidence that proves that they are innocent.

Japan system has been criticized several times because of this be their own lawyers.

@00:26
Definitely not an authority on street speak, which this isn't actually, but my point about daku/dakishimeru/dakiau still stands. Only daku can explicitly mean sex. The other two can occur during sex but does not mean sex itself.

@23:29 to be fair, reading manga and doujinshi is not the best way to pick up slang/street speak. It's like learning it from webcomics and marvel/DC comics. You'll certainly learn some of it, but not enough to say you're an authority on the subject.

My impression from years of reading that sort of manga is the first one yes, the other two not so much, maybe never. Daku has become so much to mean to have sex that you kind of need the other two to just mean embrace and hold tightly.

Ah! The wide-open spaces of America are wonderful. If it were my sister/daughter having to endure such instruction...I wouldn't care how much time had passed...I would take a cue from the movie, "Law Abiding Citizen" and introduce the sleaze to the Tool World dept. of Lowes/Home Depot.